I was kind of surprised by how hard this hit. You don’t even need to be super interested in sea life to enjoy ! really fascinating scientific essays about ocean critters interspersed with personal memoirs from the author’s queer, mixed race experiences and somehow it all intermingles beautifully.
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Hard to explain this beautiful gem of a book so I’ll quote “Armfield said that the novel was in part inspired by a wish to explore the "crossover with queer women’s fiction and the sea," adding that the ocean is often used to symbolise both "something forbidden" and something that "can be many things at once." In an interview with Sam Franzini of Our Culture Mag, she stated that the novel was in part "about an anticipation of grief and losing someone," adding that part of the horror was from "the clanging bureaucracy of not being able to get an answer."
May 30, 2024
“I discover a journey not identical to my life’s path, and yet blazed with the intimate familiarity of my own lived experience. I locate theory—the way it is lived— in motion and in interconnection. Not hard to understand; hard to live.“
- Leslie Feinberg (10th anniversary edition)
heartwrenching from start to finish. a warm hug for someone like me.
i can’t really criticize the writing of this book, just because it’s the uniqueness and importance of this story that sets it apart. it is a story that absolutely needed to be written. what’s even more amazing is that such simple writing could capture the lived intricacies of gender and sexuality in so many shades.
i had never felt seen like this.
Jan 7, 2025
It has a romantic storyline, but is mostly an epistolary, coming-of-age novel that, to me, is the most ethereally beautiful book I've ever read. His words are delicate and light enough to float off the page, yet they carry a depth of emotion that lingers long after the final letter is read.
Feb 25, 2025
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don’t give me a nasty bowl of mints. i want a free stickie that i’ll never do anything with
Apr 2, 2024
Oct 31, 2024
ripped this from an artist I follow on dribbble (s/o nick kumbari). unsettling yet adorable
Apr 24, 2024